


like wrongs hushed-up

by dissembler



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: M/M, Military Uniforms, Only Comfort I Can Give Is Love/Sex, Quiet Sex, Sex as Grief Processing, Sex in War Time, Tenderness, first time with partner of same gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissembler/pseuds/dissembler
Summary: Schofield tries his best to help.
Relationships: Joseph Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	like wrongs hushed-up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squishy_TRex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squishy_TRex/gifts).



“My board is in two weeks,” says Blake, avoiding Schofield’s eyes. He looks better than he had done when they’d arrived back in England five days ago but still tired. 

They’re in one of the common rooms at Queen Square, blanketed by comforting noises you don’t get at the front: the gramophone playing a new Al Jolson song, birdsong flowing in from the half-open windows, women’s voices mingling with men’s. At other tables there are men -- their clothing ranging from pyjamas to hospital blues and some even in full uniform, like Blake -- reading or playing card games with each other and visitors.

“That’s quick.”

Blake shrugs. “It doesn’t happen as much now,” he says and he doesn’t say what it is because he’s ashamed of it, though there’s no reason he should be. The war hits them all and not just physically; if Schofield hadn’t already stopped thinking the shell-shocked were just clever conchies before the Somme he certainly would’ve changed his tune after it. “Sometimes when I wake up I won’t be able to see but then I remember I can. Doctor says I just need rest.”  
  
They all need rest, Schofield can tell Blake’s thinking it. He can tell that Blake hates being here and safe in Blighty while his men are kept in danger in the trenches, and he can tell that there’s more to it than that. That Blake hates even this room, which is an oasis as far as Schofield’s concerned, because the pyjamas and the blues remind him that he’s a patient too. 

Schofield stands up, decision made and asks Blake to stay there a moment. He goes over to beg a favour from the duty nurse. Blake’s eyes follow him the whole way there and the whole way back.

“What was that about?” Blake asks him as soon as he sits down again.

“I asked if I could get you out of here for a bit, she’s going to find your doctor and ask him.” 

Schofield’s leave is over, he’s to catch the train to the coast tomorrow morning, then a transport ship to Calais. He’ll rejoin his regiment near where he left them. He wants to make the most of his last day in London, and he thinks Blake will appreciate being anywhere but here even if it’s just for a few hours.

Blake’s expression turns from suspicion to gratitude and he smiles. “I hope he says yes. Thank you, Schofield.”

He doesn’t correct him, doesn’t say it’s Will, but he finds he wants to. He’d been spot on, Tom had, when he’d said that his brother was just like him but a little older, and sometimes when he smiles Schofield can see it through the grief and exhaustion: the happy, good-looking man Joseph Blake must’ve been before the war. There’s a maturity to his looks that Tom hadn’t had, hadn’t lived long enough to reach. Joseph Blake is handsome, with cornflower blue eyes and the firm line of his jaw, even when those eyes are pinched and the muscle in his jaw is tight. 

Schofield looks away, heat in his cheeks. He’s come to terms with being the sort of man who notices other men, sometimes, but Blake might not appreciate the attention, not from another man. Even if Blake is that sort too… surely he wouldn’t want it from the man who lost his brother.

He’s debating his apology when the nurse comes up to them. She tells him that the doctor’s said it’s fine as long as he has Blake back here by three p.m. and when he looks over Blake is smiling happily at him. 

The Queen Square hospital looks out onto a garden, a clean kept lawn surrounded by trees. He’s walked around it before, waiting to go in and see Blake, and he leads them past it today. 

“Where’re we going?” Blake asks as they turn down the side road next to the pub. He is looking at everything but Schofield, taking in the city he’s barely seen since he’s been back. He looks better for it already. 

The hospital is in Bloomsbury, from here they can go anywhere. “Piccadilly?” he suggests. He’d thought about the Thames but he’s grown less fond of rivers since Croisilles.

Blake catches his eye. “Lead on then, corporal.”

After that they walk for a while in quiet, down streets that are still filled with people. Men in bowlers and boys in flat caps nod at them, some even come up to them. Blake angles himself against Schofield and slips his blue armband off before he shakes their hands.

At Piccadilly Circus they buy sandwiches and juice from a cafe and stand under Eros, Blake watching the motorcars, bicycles, and omnibuses and Schofield watching Blake. 

It’s a bright day, the sun high and the sky a wide expanse of blue, a little after one o’clock. They have a while before they’ll have to part ways. Schofield has a few hours yet with Blake, and a whole night before he has to leave. He’s glad he hadn’t gone home, but he feels the same sort of ache creep in anyway knowing he can’t stay. He knows he won’t be able to enjoy the borrowed soft sheets of his lodgings tonight in the same way he had when he’d arrived. The anticipation of leaving it all behind, of leaving Blake behind, of not knowing if either of them will survive this war robs him of the ability to smile like Blake is. 

But Blake is smiling enough for both of them, gazing happily at the life at home that still goes on, the things that he can see, and Schofield can be happy enough with that. 

He’s watching a group of women in fine clothes tease a group of youths almost old enough to enlist when he feels Blake touch his arm. 

“You’re a brick, Schofield,” Blake says awkwardly, but he doesn’t drop his hand from Schofield’s sleeve or glance away. “Thanks for this.”

Schofield nods. “It’s nothing, sir. I’ve been meaning to come here myself all week. My lodgings are fairly close.” Blake raises an eyebrow and Schofield laughs, says, “Drury Lane.”

“That is close. Come on then, let’s see your digs,” he says and Schofield tries not to hope. “I’m sure they’re better than the ward.”

“I’ve no gramophone.”

“Well, I won’t hold it against you.”

The walk takes them by more sights for Blake to take in, people enjoying the green of Leicester Square and the markets of Covent Garden. Here again people smile and nod at them and Blake stiffens when they do, still afraid that somehow they’ll work out why he’s home and that they’ll think the less of him for it. Schofield’s never had much use for shame, which isn’t to say that he’s loud or scandalous because he isn’t; he’s just able to think about things clearly. 

The well wishing civilians of Covent Garden let them go and when they reach Schofield’s boarding house Blake gives a low whistle. “You splashed out.”

Schofield opts for honesty, to see the reaction. “The hospital helped me release enough pay to stay close.”

Blake doesn’t frown, but his mouth takes on an unhappy cast. “Ah.” 

They’re quiet as they climb the stairs. The whole place is quiet, most of the lodgers out at work or enjoying the sunshine. Good, Schofield thinks, that’s good, and he unlocks and pushes open his door.

It’s a light, airy room, not too big but the bed is real: deep mattress, clean sheets that are softer than anything he’s felt in a while, soft as Blake’s hair looks. 

“I’m glad they did.” Schofield says, settling against the table across from the bed. “Want to keep me close, I mean.” He gestures for Blake to sit down on the bed.

Blake sits and looks up at him, confused. “You don’t miss your family?”

“Of course I do. Leaving them last time hurt too much, is all.”

“But your wife…”

Schofield holds up his bandaged left hand, the cut still painful but healing. “I’d hate to bring the war back with me. She deserves better than that. When I go back I want to stay back.” He drops his hand back to his side. “And I’m happy if I’ve been of any help to you, sir.”

Blake turns his face away. “Stop calling me ‘sir’,” he says, voice rough. “I’m no ‘sir’ to you, no ‘sir’ to anyone. _Christ_ but Tom would be ashamed of me.”

Tom had learnt with the rest of them how close they all are to breaking, any man with compassion must when faced with a friend or a CO quaking in their boots. 

“He would never have thought any less of you,” he tells him, coming to sit next to him on the bed. He catalogues Blake’s slight flinch away, thinks about shame again in a different context. “Nobody does.”

Blake laughs, hollow. “ _I_ think less of me.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s stupid.” He’s making a habit of insubordination, he thinks, but he takes Blake by the shoulders and pulls him so they’re face to face. “After I’d delivered the message to Colonel McKenzie,” he says, “I asked your Major where you’d be and he said, he said that, knowing you, you’d’ve gone over with your men. He knew how brave you are, so you remember it. And Tom loved you. He couldn’t say a bad thing about you.”

This close, lit from the sun streaming through the window behind him, Blake truly is beautiful. He should not be ashamed of anything.

“You’d never have broken down,” Blake says, staring at his hands in his lap. Schofield takes a hand from Blake’s shoulder and before he can think the better of it he cups his jaw to angle his face up: the blue of his eyes, deeper than Tom’s were, grey in his hair that Tom won’t age to get. Christ, Tom.

“I feel like I’m breaking every day, sir.”

One of Blake’s hands comes up to cover Schofield’s at his jaw, palm a little rough from handling guns and rope and from the leeching mud but still warm, alive. Grief lights in Schofield like a pyre going up, like a shell hitting a motorcar and setting it ablaze taking personnel with it.

He closes his eyes, tries to pull his hand free but instead Blake uses the shift to pull him closer, getting a hand of his own on Schofield, between his shoulder and his neck: mirroring. 

“Will,” Blake says and Schofield opens his eyes, closes the gap and kisses him. 

Hesitantly, Blake begins to return the kiss and he grows more bold, pressing Will to him until he breaks away, breathing fast.

“You would do this?” Blake asks, as if it were a favour and Will hadn’t been looking at him all day.

More than that. “I _want_ to,” Will says, every inch of his skin awake to the promise of touch. He moves his hand to Blake’s tie. “Tell me you do.”

Blake makes a sound between a sigh and a moan as Will’s fingers brush against his throat. “God, I. Please.”

Will moves fast, pulling Blake -- Joseph, _Joe_ \-- to him by the tie to kiss him again, pulling the tie loose and unbuttoning his tunic to push it off his strong shoulders. Blake drops his hands to let him, pulling his arms free and taking Will’s face between his hands again, deepening the kiss. Moving as desperately as Will is. 

If only they had more time to do this properly, but Will glances to the clock and sees it’s already close to two, and Queen Square a quarter of an hour away. He abandons the buttons of Blake’s shirt in favour of his own tunic, making quick work of getting it off and tossing it aside to join Blake’s. He kneels up on the bed, shoving the discarded layers aside and caring nothing for the fact their still mostly dressed, still in their boots, and with his hands on Blake’s shoulders he pushes him down and sets a knee either side of his hips, settling down on strong looking thighs.

Blake looks up at him, blue eyes widened. He reaches for Will’s hand and Will lets him have it, lets himself be pulled to bend over him and be kissed, uses that as a distraction to get his other hand on Blake’s trousers and pop the button, pushing Blake’s shirt and undershirt up over his stomach and then heading back down. Blake’s mouth opens wide against his when he parts his drawers and wraps his hand around what he finds there. His prick is heavy, brand-hot, in his hand and Blake shudders.

“Christ,” Blake turns his head slightly, mouthes it against Will’s jaw and Will straightens his back, lets go of Blake’s hand to attack his own trousers, draw out his own prick as he does Blake’s. Blake glances down and throws his head back against the mattress, overwhelmed like Will isn’t yet but wants to be. “Christ,” he says again, fervently.

Will bends again, leaning over to take Blake’s warm, lush mouth and to slot their cocks together, already slick enough to ease the slide. There’s vaseline in his kitbag but by the sounds of the low noises Blake’s making he doesn’t think they’ll need it. 

As affected as he himself is, when he leans back up to see Blake looks a bit like one of the statues they see in the churches in France: his face turned half into the sheets, his eyes screwed closed and his mouth parted, red like a wound. He looks exactly like Will had hoped he would and had felt wretched for hoping. With his free hand, the hand not slowly pulling them off, he draws the backs of his fingers down Blake’s cheek and Blake turns back to him, looks at him with dazed eyes and for a moment Will worries he’s gone blind again but then he blinks and pulls Will down again to kiss him, murmuring something against his lips that he can’t catch. 

Blake worms his other hand between them, his fingers overlapping Will’s as he moves his hand in tandem, adding pressure and bucking his hips up in a way that makes Will bite his lip to keep from groaning. The place seems empty, but that just means noise carries. He’s glad for the bed not squeaking beneath them, like he’s glad for the privacy, the safety of home leave. Mostly he’s glad to be touched, and to do this for Blake, _with_ Blake.

Will feels himself coming close and can feel it in Blake too, his strong thighs shaking. He leans back, shifts his hand, pressing his hips down and grinding his cock against Blake’s, feeling Blake thrash to the side as he comes and following him over, both of them spilling over the hair on Blake’s pale stomach that heaves as he catches his breath.

He sits back but doesn’t move off, he waits for Blake to look at him again. In his gut, the warmth of release is mixing with a little fear. There’s always a little fear, with men, of reactions after the fact. What they’ve just done is a crime, no matter what William Schofield thinks. But Blake turns his head back and smiles, small but there. 

“Thank you, Will,” he says, taking Will’s hand again and lacing his fingers through it. “You’re much braver than me and I’m glad of it. I’d never have had the guts to do that if not for you.”

Will looks at their hands, at the mess on Blake’s stomach, and feels the fear recede. He smiles back and climbs off, lying down next to Blake on the bed. 

He doesn’t think about going back to France, and he doesn’t think of taking Blake back to the hospital. He lets them lay together, enjoying peace and quiet while they have it. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Wilfred Owen's 'The Send-Off'. 
> 
> Queen Square was more formally know at the time as the National Hospital for the Relief and Cure of the Paralysed and Epileptic and was a part of the First London General Hospital during the war. 
> 
> Thank you so much for requesting these boys and those tags! Hope you enjoy.


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